Sonny Liston v Chris Byrd

That's why I maintain that Byrd was not as slick defensively as Jimmy Young.

 

Different kinds of slickness, mate. They defended themselves in entirely different ways. They dont even really have a ton of stylistic similarities.

 

Yeah, for instance, Byrd had that weird style where he would punch and win most of his fights while defending himself at the same time. It's called "fighting" or "boxing" style. As opposed to Young's "surviving" or "not getting killed" style, that focused on "surviving" or "not getting killed", rather than the more common but cliched "landing more punches than your opponent" style that most hacks win with, because they're too simplistic and barbaric to understand ring generalship, which judges are supposed to focus on the most when scoring fights.

 

Sonny of course in 2!!!!:happy

 

Liston might win but he ain't knocking out Byrd......unless Byrd clowns around like in the Ike fight and then I am not sure because IMO Liston is probably the most overrated Hwt who has ever lived.

Byrd went the distance and got up from several knock downs when he fought the then agressive not safety first WK........and I am certain that punch for punch WK hits easily as hard or harder than Liston and WK's jab is certainly on Listons level too but much,much faster.

Byrd even washed up ,outgunned and outsized never ever quit, period, and has a outstanding chin, he handled Ike easily until he thought it would be time to be cute because Ike just followed him around punching air and still got up from that flush monster uppercut, not able to continue but got up. The same cannot be said about Super Mob Killer Sonny Liston, granted he was old but nevertheless he got laid out cold in his last fight, iron chin guys like Tyson, Foreman, Mercer even totally finished were never ever out cold reaching for the sniffing salt in their farewell fights so I am not sold on Sonnys chin .

Last but not least he not only quit once when the going got rough, oh no , Super Sonny Mob Killer did it twice in even more obvious fashion.

Needless to say I am not a big fan of Liston, hell, even on film he does not look that great to me considering the subpar competition he faced.

Now before anybody pisses in their pants because I went against some romantic liberal history re writing similar to Super Pimp fight no one with talent Johnson the above is all just my opinion.

 

That's how I see it with the Byrdman not cooperating with Sonny. But Liston having the tools to change the tide of the fight and take it over later on. That's always a challenge for guys that get the ko's though, and sometimes they never do manage to alter things & drop decisions in winnable bouts. you know, one of those "if only" type losses and that is the only way Chris wins this.

The big thing with Liston is his relatively poor corner. It's not like Liston would bother to work with southpaws or his trainer would work on things prefight. They pretty much held the spit bucket and a slippery guy like Byrd is not going to be easy to catch or land combos on early. And you know Byrd would go in there very well prepared. He wouldn't fight a so called negative fight--like say Jimmy Young coulc--but more of a neutralizing type fight that I can picture being effective early on.

An interesting fight & I always like matches where the big hitters have to break down an opponent systematically for the late ko's.